Came across this interesting post over on Hibernia Girl’s excellent blog…seems like "population mobility" aka the polite euphemism for immigration from sub-Sahara Africa has seen the number of Aids cases in Northern Ireland surge by 300% in ten years! As has been pointed out this is taking a huge toll on public health services and yet, oddly enough, it is rarely discussed by our gutless politicians. Make sure you visit her site to read more on this.

If you’re interested in the topic of black and white in America and love good writing, go read this gem at The New England Republican. Here’s a small taste, then go read the whole thing, agree or disagree, it will be well worth your time. Hotspur is a wicked good writer.

"Like the earthiness attributed to truckers, the wildness attributed to Scotsmen, the eye-sparkle, melancholy and quick ironies attributed to the Irish…all the crap and flummery that Americans grope for as description and justification for differences ends up in stereotype and excuses. This is one of the first and most poisonous effects of multiculturalism; it “celebrates” distinctions because they exist, and has no moral mechanism to evaluate destructive and retrograde behavior. For this reason, we Americans are unable to even discuss the cultural divide and achievement gaps between white and black America.

All of us, black and white, have known for thirty years that something racial has gone seriously wrong in this country. Conservatives have, for years, been inviting a discussion of it, but the identity politics of the Democratic Party have bowdlerized the subject from its own liturgies, and condemned the heretics outside the party for questioning its racial orthodoxy. Curiously enough, the vapid and opportunistic Barack Obama has changed all this, and not by design. "

Now here’s a great song and if you want to know why I really dig this guy’s stuff, just check out the last minute or so of the performance – it’s what moves me and the repeating lyric in the chorus has a particular resonance for me. I sometimes feel like that!

Here’s an interesting one for you – and I thank Frank O’Dwyer for bringing it up as an issue today.

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam – and a controversial and radical modernisation of the "religion". The country’s powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.Is this a sign of progress – of a new Islam. Or is it secularist Turkey trying its best to stop the relentless advance of "traditional" murderous Islam? I found this quite an interesting analysis on the issue and my instinct is to wish the Turks well…. what do you all think about it?

One of my favourite US writers is a guy called George Will and I was impressed by this tribute he paid to the late William F Buckley…..

"Those who think Jack Nicholsons’ neon smile is the last word in smiles never saw William F. Buckley’s. It could light up an auditorium; it did light up half a century of elegant advocacy that made him an engaging public intellectual and the 20th century’s most consequential journalist.

Before there could be Ronald Reagan’s presidency, there had to be Barry Goldwater’s candidacy. It made conservatism confident and placed the Republican Party in the hands of its adherents. Before there could be Goldwater’s insurgency, there had to be National Review Magazine. From the creative clutter of its Manhattan offices flowed the ideological electricity that powered the transformation of American conservatism from a mere sensibility into a fighting faith and a blueprint for governance.

Before there was National Review, there was Buckley, spoiling for a philosophic fight, to be followed, of course, by a flute of champagne with his adversaries. He was 29 when, in 1955, he launched National Review with the vow that it "stands athwart history, yelling Stop." Actually, it helped Bill take history by the lapels, shake it to get its attention and then propel it in a new direction. Bill died Wednesday in his home, in his study…"

I was so pleased to see that Mahons had paid tribute to WFB the other day – I think that gentlemen such as Buckley are a dying breed, if you’ll pardon the pun, and we are all diminished by their passing.Pat, Bill’s beloved wife of 56 years, died last April. During the memorial service for her at a friend read lines from "Vitae Summa Brevis" by a poet she admired, Ernest Dowson:

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:

Out of a misty dream

Our path emerges for a while, then closes

Within a dream.

Bill’s final dream was to see her again, a consummation of which his faith assured him. Love prevails folks.

I wonder if you would agree with Ilana Mercer when she argues that from an economic point of view, China is becoming more free and America less free….

"While Ben Bernanke continues to cut interest rates to spur easy credit and artificial economic growth– and to make his political masters look good – China raised interest rates six times last year. The late free market economist Milton Friedman, whose books are wildly popular in the Republic of China, would have probably sided with the actions of the People’s Bank. If Chairman Ben were a friend of the American people, rather than pal (and chief counterfeiter) to politicians, he’d raise interest rates and tighten credit too. China may be experiencing economic jitters, but it is still "running giant surpluses" and, as a crop of new books confirms, is "on the brink of becoming the world’s leading trading nation." The Chinese are ditching Mao for Milton, as Americans trust Oprah to pick their literature and leaders. Indeed China is changing. It is "out of the red" in more ways than one. The U.S. is changing too: It’s in the red and getting redder."

The survey found Obama leading 48.2 percent to 41.7 percent over Clinton statewide. The poll, conducted Tuesday through Thursday for the Houston Chronicle, Reuters and C-SPAN by Zogby International, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

Hillary leads in heavily Hispanic South Texas, while Obama leads everywhere else – including 60% in both Houston and Dallas.

Meanwhile, it appears that the prospects of any major “you’re not conservative enough message vote” to John McCain by conservatives might be fading.

McCain led with 53.4 percent support to Huckabee’s 26.8 percent and Paul’s 10.7 percent in a survey that had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. McCain led among all groups, including self-identified conservatives.

It looks like the general election campaign will be starting Wednesday – Obama, the most liberal United States Senator, vs. McCain, who is, well, far less liberal. Plus, for the first time since 1960, a sitting Senator will finally have won the White House. I am absolutely delighted that it won’t be Senator Clinton.

Yes, I know that my colleague Mike Cunningham has already weighed in on this, to your general disapproval I note, but I’m coming at it from my own angle. I refer to the campaign to force all retailers to stop giving away carrier bags. What really got me was Gordon Brown’s declaration that he will FORCE the retailers to stop giving away plastic bags – if they do not do so voluntarily. They’ve got a year before he acts, he warns. Now then, how brave is our Gordon? When it comes to fighting a real war against Islamists, the craven coward bans the very word "Islamic" – but when it’s British shop-keepers and their bags for shoppers, why he’s Mr Macho. Wonder what Brown would do if Muslim shop-owners declared that Shar’ia law required them to use plastic bags? Bet he would instantly start making concessions to them. I have no love for plastic bags but I have even less for grasping opportunistic politicians who love to take away choice and bully the private sector.

Don’t know if any UK readers saw the BBC "Question Time" programme last night but the bit in it that really sickened me was the praise gushing from Saddam’s best buddy – the odious George Galloway – and others on the panel – for Cuba’s world-class health care system. We were led to believe that good old Fidel had really shown the US up thanks to the state of the art health care provision he has put in place in this communist nirvana. All bull really. If you want to know exactly how Cuba’s health care provision works, read THIS. The people I feel sorry for are the ordinary people of Cuba. I have nothing but contempt for those like Galloway and the other left-wingers who queued up last night to shower praise on Castro.

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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